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Mark Lewis selected as NCAA executive vice president for championships and alliances

April 10, 2012 12:00am

Mark Lewis has been selected executive vice president for championships and alliances, NCAA president Mark Emmert announced today. In his new role, Lewis is a member of the national office’s senior management group and oversees the Association’s 89 championships as well as its business initiatives, including the corporate and media partner programs.

Lewis was previously president of Jet Set Sports, a leading hospitality and event company that has highly successful partnerships with various local and national Olympic organizing committees.

“Mark is a remarkable executive who has made an incredible impact throughout his career whether in the business sector, with a wide range of Olympic entities, or as a senior executive with a national network,” said Emmert. “Mark has the right skill set, knowledge and experiences for this job. I look forward to working with Mark and I’m confident his keen insights, business acumen and leadership will greatly benefit the Association and its members in the future.”

“I really appreciate this exciting opportunity to serve the NCAA membership by working on a team that provides memorable experiences for student-athletes and fans across all of our 89 championships,” said Lewis. “The important relationships with our corporate champions and partners, along with our media partners, play a critical role in our ability to support more than 430,000 student-athletes in the classroom and on the field of competition. I will work tirelessly to enhance opportunities for student-athletes as we move forward.”

“Mark’s selection is the result of an extensive national search that produced an outstanding pool of candidates,” said Jim Delany, Big Ten Commissioner and a member of the NCAA search committee. “It was immediately obvious to the search committee that he was an exceptional candidate with the leadership, experience and business sense to make a huge impact in this job.”

As president of Jet Set Sports, Lewis led a company focused on providing support to Olympic entities in the areas of accommodations, event tickets, catering, ground transportation, management and many other services. Since his arrival in 2005, he played a key role increasing company revenue by more than 400 percent.

Prior to his position at Jet Set Sports, Lewis was vice president of sponsorship at the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) where he was responsible for the oversight of all aspects of global Olympic and NFL sponsorships for General Electric, including working with various business units of the company to increase sales.

Lewis also previously served as president and chief operating officer of Olympic Properties of the United States (OPUS) LLC in Salt Lake City. OPUS was a joint venture of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). This joint venture raised more than $1.5 billion from sponsorships with more than 70 corporations as well as funds through ticket sales, private donations and merchandise agreements. At OPUS, he was responsible for all commercial fundraising activities associated with the Olympic movement within the United States including those related to the 2002 Olympic Winter games. He has also served in executive positions within the USOC and the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee.

Lewis is a former football student-athlete at Georgia. He earned his undergraduate degree in 1988 and his law degree in 1992 from the school.

He is the son of Bill Lewis, the former head football coach at East Carolina, Georgia Tech and Wyoming and assistant at a number of prominent programs, most recently Notre Dame. Bill Lewis also spent time as an NFL assistant with the Miami Dolphins.

Emmert also recognized Greg Shaheen for his service as interim executive vice president of championships and alliances. “Greg and I will be meeting over the next several days to discuss his role with the NCAA moving forward,” said Lewis.